


I See, Said the Blind Man

by enthusiasmgirl



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Ableism, Blindness, Disability, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Shyness, Slash if you squint, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-19
Updated: 2015-09-01
Packaged: 2018-04-15 12:44:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4607214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enthusiasmgirl/pseuds/enthusiasmgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Foggy spent so much time being mad at Matt for lying to him that he forgot that Matt wasn't just lying to him. He was lying, still is, to everyone. And now, he's one of the only ones who knows exactly what Matt can do. </p><p>He decides to embrace this fact to test Matt's limits and have some fun letting him show off. Because who else is he going to show off to?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Paper Balls

**Author's Note:**

> So apparently I can't write thousands of words of angsty, plotty fic without having to write something fluffy and fun to counterbalance it. So that's what this is! Easy, breezy Matt and Foggy fluff, adorable avocados doing what they do for all of you to enjoy.
> 
> As always, it has not been beta read. Errors may be present, but if you point them out I will correct them.
> 
> For a Daredevil Kink Meme prompt which you can find [here.](http://daredevilkink.dreamwidth.org/4501.html?thread=7788437#cmt7788437)

It started with a crumpled paper ball.  
  
It was a Friday evening, just after 7pm. Matt and Foggy had been working hard on a difficult case, putting in long hours all week and were now, finally, seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. For Foggy, that light was a night of Law and Order reruns and a small cheese pizza from the place he loved down the street from his apartment. For Matt, Foggy imagined it was an evening spent chasing down muggers and drug dealers in the Kitchen's darkest alleys and most isolated nooks and crannies. To each their own, he supposed.  
  
Still, he wished that Matt were a little less serious all the time lately. He missed the carefree nights spent drinking at Josie's, and the security of knowing that when he wasn't out, when he was at home relaxing, Matt was too. He longed for the long impromptu phone conversations that they had used to have at 12am about the ethics of Jack McCoy's approach to justice or the sloppiness of Lennie Briscoe's investigations as the commercials ran and he laid on his couch. Now, there was only an unsettling feeling of anxiety as he went to pick up the phone and remembered what his friend was doing, what he felt so compelled to do.  
  
He looked over at Matt, who was frowning as he concentrated on whatever the screen reader was telling him, as his fingers moved over the braille display. And he couldn't take it anymore. He just felt like being silly. So he picked up the paper ball he had crumpled up earlier that was sitting on his desk and threw it at Matt's head.  
  
Sometimes, and he felt bad about it honestly, but sometimes in college he had thrown things at Matt to get his attention. Soft things. Gently. Knowing that Matt wouldn't be mad. That Matt liked that Foggy didn't treat him like he was made out of glass. It was just something he did every once in a while when he was bored and they were studying. It made Matt smile, and sometimes Matt threw things back. Foggy used to wonder how Matt's projectiles were always so accurate, but he didn't anymore.  
  
His mother caught him doing it once when Matt was at home with him for Christmas. Boy, did she chew him out about it afterwards. But it didn't matter. Matt didn't care, and his opinion was the one that was important.  
  
So Foggy threw the ball at Matt. Just like he had used to, before Daredevil, before he knew about the world on fire.  
  
And Matt caught it.  
  
It took Foggy a moment to process that. A tiny paper ball thrown across the desk, caught in mid-air without it even seeming to startle the man or distract him from what he was doing.  
  
"What was that for?" Matt asked.  
  
"No reason," Foggy said. "Just because."  
  
"Well could you quit fooling around?" Matt said. "We're almost done here."  
  
But Foggy was now turning things over in his mind. All thoughts of work had fled his brain as he replayed the fact that Matt had caught that ball.  
  
So he crumpled up a piece of notebook paper and threw another one. Matt caught that one too.  
  
"Really?" Matt asked, annoyed, but he smiled slightly. He threw it back. It hit Foggy square on the forehead. Foggy laughed.  
  
So Foggy crumpled up another one and threw them both. And Matt caught both.  
  
"What is going on with you?" Matt asked, his smile now reaching his eyes.  
  
Foggy shrugged, but didn't narrate it. He wanted to see if Matt knew. Matt shook his head with exasperation like he'd seen it and leaned back in his chair, head tilted towards the ceiling. He was clearly tired. He began absentmindedly rolling the two paper balls in his hands between his fingers as Foggy went back to work.  
  
And then, to Foggy's surprise, he saw Matt throw both paper balls into the air and catch them. Both of them. And then he threw them and caught them in alternating hands. The bastard was actually juggling them!  
  
"What?" Matt asked, leaning forward curiously.  
  
Foggy shook his head to clear his thoughts. "You're juggling!"  
  
Matt seemed surprised that Foggy was so excited about it. "I guess so, yeah."  
  
"You," Foggy said.  
  
"Yeah?" Matt asked.  
  
"Can juggle," Foggy said.  
  
"Well it's not normally something I brag about, but yes. I can juggle," Matt said. "And fight, and dodge weapons, and climb fire escapes. You know this, Foggy. We've been over this."  
  
"I knew that you had certain skills," Foggy said. "I just didn't consider juggling. Where did you learn to juggle?"  
  
"I didn't," Matt said. "Not on purpose anyway. It's just something I picked up when I was alone and bored."  
  
Alone, Foggy realized, because Matt couldn't normally let himself juggle in front of other people. Matt couldn't let himself do a lot of things in front of other people. And with that realization, Foggy realized something else important.  
  
"Have you ever played baseball?" he asked Matt.  
  
Matt looked completely taken aback by the question. "Once or twice when I was a kid. Before the accident. With my dad. But not since. I would think that would be obvious, Foggy."   
  
"Ever gone hiking?" Foggy asked.  
  
"No," Matt said. He frowned, not sure where Foggy was going with his line of questioning.  
  
"Played paintball? Or tennis? Taken a dance lesson? Rode a bike? Driven a car?" Foggy asked relentlessly.  
  
"No, Foggy. You know I haven't done anything of those things!" Matt said, irritated.  
  
"But you could," Foggy said. "If you wanted to. Even without sight. Couldn't you?"  
  
Matt sighed. "I don't know. Maybe. Probably. Although it's not that simple Foggy. There's a lot of visual components to all of those things. I could hurt someone. Or myself. Why are you asking?"  
  
"I just never really thought before about what it must cost you to walk around pretending," Foggy said. "I mean, I know that you're really blind, that you can't see. But it must suck to have to hide behind those glasses and that cane so much of the time. It must feel good to be Daredevil and get to be who you are and not have people set expectations for you about what you are or aren't capable of."  
  
"Yeah," said Matt. "I guess so." He didn't look like he fully believed what Foggy was saying though.  
  
Foggy threw another paper ball at him. "Teach me to juggle," Foggy said.  
  
Matt laughed. "We have real work to get done," he said.  
  
"And we'll get to it. But I've always wanted to learn to do it. I'm mad," Foggy said, but he was grinning. "I could have learned years ago if I'd known I was hanging out with a pro this whole time. You owe me years of juggling lessons, Murdock. Let's do this."  
  
"Fine," Matt finally said. "But I am never letting you talk me into driving your car. That would be a bad idea."  
  
"We'll see," said Foggy. And they would.


	2. Bar Games

After the incident with the paper balls, Foggy observed things slowly get back to normal. Well, as normal as they could be when your best friend is a super-heroic ninja who fights crime in a red devil costume. But he made good on his promise to Matt that they could move forward, at least.

The juggling helped. It broke some of the tension between them, became a way for Foggy to acknowledge that he knew Matt, really knew him, for the first time and get comfortable with everything that had happened. After Matt gave him that impromptu juggling lesson, it became something that they did frequently when they were alone.

They would juggle across the conference table to pass moments of boredom, or play catch back and forth between their offices, projectiles whizzing past Karen's empty desk, a game. A challenge.

Foggy invested in a basketball hoop for Matt's office and a collection of nerf balls. Karen was bewildered, but Matt explained to her that it was an in joke. She laughed, but clearly didn't get it.

One day, Foggy was sitting in his office working on some paperwork when he heard a sudden cry of "Murdock going for the win!" and watched a baseball, his baseball, go flying past him and into the small garbage can next to his desk, rustling the paper inside as it landed with a satisfying thunk.

"You know that could have hit me!" Foggy yelled.

"Are you gonna throw it back?" Matt asked, laughing.

Foggy was torn. On the one hand, he trusted Matt to catch it or get out of it's way. But on the other hand, a baseball was a lot harder than a ball made of paper or foam. And it was difficult for Foggy to shake off his deep-seated sense that throwing a baseball at a blind person was asking for trouble.

"Come on," Matt said. "Throw it back already!"

So Foggy did. And he flinched as it sailed through the air, letting out a sigh of relief when Matt caught it effortlessly.

"Show off," Foggy muttered, chuckling to himself and knowing that Matt could hear him.

After that, Foggy slowly got used to the idea that, with Matt, nothing was off limits. Which was fine, until Karen walked in a second after a stapler left his hand heading towards Matt. The fact that the smug bastard had let it fall to the floor in front of him like he hadn't seen it coming didn't make Foggy look very good. He doubted that she believed him when he said that it flew out of his hand by accident. He was a terrible liar.

* * *

It wasn't until one night at Josie's that Foggy finally got an opportunity to coax Matt further out of his comfort zone and convince him to use his skills outside of the office or a darkened street brawl.

The weather outside was atrocious. Spring had arrived and brought with it a series of thunderstorms of epic proportions, which meant that the bar was empty. Matt and Foggy were the only patrons, the weather having driven everyone else away. They were soaking wet, and, for once, both uninterested in heading their separate ways.

"Aren't you planning on going out tonight?" Foggy asked. "To... you know... do your thing?" Being the only people in the bar meant that the place was eerily quiet. He didn't know if Josie was interested in eavesdropping on them or not, despite the fact that she was on the phone at the other end of the bar.

"No," Matt said softly. "If nobody's here, then nobody will be out there either. Plus, the rain and I don't get along."

"What do you mean?" Foggy asked.

"The rain messes with me," Matt said. "On the one hand, it illuminates things more clearly because I can better hear where everything is, but it also drowns out necessary information. It dampens smells and changes the air pressure. It's beautiful, but it makes things difficult."

"Oh," Foggy said, not sure what to say to that. Matt very rarely talked about things like that with him.

"Alright, gentlemen!" Josie yelled at them as she hung up the phone, "We're closing up! Go home!"

Foggy groaned and Matt sighed. "It's only 7pm," Foggy complained. "Come on, Josie, what gives?"

"My fool son's basement apartment is flooding," Josie said, "and he needs me to help him fish his stuff out and put him up. We're closing early tonight."

"Couldn't we stay until the rain slows?" Matt asked. "We'd be happy to lock the place up for you. You could put any drinks on our tab. You know us, Josie. You can trust us."

Josie snorted. "Say the lawyers," she said. "Professional liars, that's what you boys are."

Foggy gasped in offense and clutched his chest overdramatically. "After all the business we give you?" he asked. "Your best customers?"

Josie just stared.

"Okay," Foggy said, "Your least shady customers?"

"Fine," Josie said, and she took a set of keys off of a large key-ring attached to her belt and threw it to Foggy, who fumbled to catch it. "You stay another hour or two, tops. I'll be double-checking to see if anything's missing or what you drank afterwards, and I expect you to leave me a very generous tip. You pull the gate down and lock up carefully when you're done. Two deadbolts, a padlock on the gate, and the front lock. And you clean up after yourselves."

They nodded. "Absolutely," Matt said. "Thanks, Josie."

"Don't thank me until after I come back at closing time to check that you left everything the way you found it," she said.

And they were alone in the bar.

Foggy smiled at Matt. "So," he said. "Darts?"

"Darts?" Matt asked. "Really?"

"Why not?" Foggy asked. "Nobody's around to see. It's just you and me!"

Matt looked unamused, but he agreed, and before long Foggy was sorry he'd asked his friend to play. Matt's sense of direction and marksmanship were insane. After a couple of rounds, Foggy realized that there was no competition in it. He made Matt stand further and further away from the dartboard, but it didn't seem to matter. And Matt's skill made things less fun for both of them.

"Seriously?" he finally asked. "What the hell? You're not double-bluffing me are you? You're not secretly also aiding the Avengers using the name Hawkeye? You are unreal!" He pulled the three darts firmly sunk into the center target off of the board.

Matt just shrugged at him. "Sorry," he said. "You were the one who told me that you didn't want me to lie anymore."

"Oh," Foggy said. "You are a piece of work, my friend. Fine. Let's play something that you don't have any experience with. Have you ever played pool?"

"No," said Matt with a smile. "Although I should warn you that my dad used to be great at it, before I was born. He used to tell me stories. So there's a chance that I may have inherited his talent."

"Well then," said Foggy, "let's do this."

He taught Matt how to rack the table and gave him a couple of basic pointers on his form, and they started to play. He soon regretted it.

"You're so full of it," he said, frustrated.

"What?" Matt asked innocently.

"You're a pool shark! You never played before? Yeah, right," Foggy said.

"I really have never played before, Foggy," Matt told him. "I guess my particular set of skills just lend themselves to pool. I could see how I have an advantage. My senses are finely attuned to predicting momentum, determining friction, understanding motion. My training helps me understand where the balls are in relation to one another, exactly where to hit them and how much pressure to use to get them to do what I want."

"Okay then," Foggy said. "So we play a game that I'm well-trained for."

"And what game is that?" Matt asked.

"A drinking game!" Foggy yelled with a grin, and hopped the counter to find a bottle.

Foggy won that one. And he did it while still somehow being sober enough to lock up Josie's and see Matt home in the pouring rain before stripping off his wet clothes and collapsing onto the man's couch.

But he resolved that he would have to find something fun to do with Matt that didn't make him feel inadequate and that resulted in less damage to his liver.


	3. Wedding Abandoners

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So a couple notes off the top for everyone:
> 
> 1) I am running a Minor Character Fic Fest for Daredevil which can be found [here](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/DD_Minor_Character_Ficfest). The deadline has been extended until September 15th. Please enter, or at least encourage others to.
> 
> 2) I am also starting a fanfiction podcast called The OTPodcast. It will be launching soon. Before then, we have a [Tumblr](http://otpodcast.tumblr.com), [Twitter](http://twitter.com/theotpodcast), and [Facebook](http://facebook.com/theotpodcast). Follow us and help spread the word! If you do, you will also get a lot of great fanfic related links, quotes, and content! It's a no-lose proposition, really!

Foggy loved weddings. In fact, love may not have been a strong enough word. Foggy adored weddings more than Christmas, his birthday, and Halloween combined. And they loved him. Everybody told him so. No matter whose wedding it was - his ex-girlfriend's, a childhood acquaintance's, a distant cousin's - Foggy was always the life of the party and a memorable part of everybody's good time. He was a great conversationalist and an even better listener, which meant that he always got to hear the craziest stories about the bride or groom. He could give a toast like nobody's business. And the dancing... well, he had moves. Maybe not the best-looking moves, but certainly the most confident. Whether it was the chicken dance, the Macarena, the dance from the Thriller video, or just that thing where everyone makes a circle around a person and watches them go nuts, Foggy always committed. Once the music started, he didn't stop, and if you wanted to know where he was you only had to look towards the dance floor. You'd be sure to see him with a flower girl standing on his feet or an old lady being charmed in his arms.

Which was why he was so surprised to find that Matt and weddings did not get along.

He'd never been to a wedding with Matt before. He had never thought to take him as his plus one because he'd always had girlfriends willing to go with him and, if he didn't, going solo never bothered him. And none of their college friends had marriage on their mind due to the stress of finishing law school. So he got really excited when he and Matt received matching invitations to Marci's best friend's wedding in Boston. She and Matt had briefly dated, but when things hadn't worked out they had all still stayed close and studied together.

Foggy immediately pulled his out and filled out the RSVP card with a flourish right there in the office, and then turned to Matt. "Oh, man," he said, "she didn't by any chance happen to remember to send yours in braille, did she?"

"No," Matt said, "But it's okay."

"Well I was going to mail mine at lunch. Do you want me to just fill yours out for you and mail it then too?" Foggy asked.

"Sure," said Matt. "Just indicate that I'm not attending, okay?"

"What?" Foggy asked. Then he asked it again just for impact. "Why would you not go to Steph's wedding? You guys were so close!"

Matt sighed and shuffled his feet. "I'm not really a wedding person, Foggy. And most of the time people understand why," he said.

"No," said Foggy. "You're coming. You have to. We've never done a wedding before, and I am awesome at weddings, Matt! I need you to experience me in all my glory!"

Matt sighed, but smiled. "Fine," he finally said. "Put me down for the fish. But I want you to know that you've set the bar for yourself very high now."

"Wedding Foggy will not disappoint, Matt," Foggy told him. "I promise you that you'll have fun."

Keeping that promise turned out to be harder than Foggy expected it to be. When the day of the wedding came, he was his usual outgoing and upbeat self. Matt, however, seemed to have dug his heels in about being miserable.

Throughout the dinner, Matt was polite and friendly, but only the minimum amount he had to be. He looked deeply uncomfortable and awkward around so many people, most of them strangers. When Foggy asked him questions to try and engage him in his conversations, his responses were terse. He didn't even finish his dinner, and Foggy suspected it was because he had some aversion to catered food that he'd never mentioned. Foggy encouraged him to drink to loosen him up, but Matt declined and nursed a glass of water instead.

Worse, when the music began Matt seemed to withdraw into himself even more. Foggy grabbed both of his friend's hands and tried to pull him onto the dance floor with him, but Matt outright refused to move from his seat. It was only when Foggy noticed that he was getting stern looks from fellow wedding guests that he realized how demanding that a blind man join him on a crowded dance floor looked and why everyone else was content to leave Matt alone.

"You go, Foggy," Matt said. "Dance. I'll be fine."

Foggy sighed but knew that Matt would hate him more for not having fun for his sake than for abandoning him, so away he went to join the crowd.

It was hours before he looked over and noticed that Matt appeared to have left the reception hall altogether, and he inwardly cursed himself out for having left him alone.

When he finally found his friend, he was sitting on a bench under a gazebo outside, far from the fun and frivolity of the party happening inside.

"So what's the deal?" Foggy asked, trusting Matt to have heard him approaching and known it was him.

"There's no deal, Foggy," Matt replied.

"There's definitely a deal. What have you got against weddings?" Foggy asked again.

Matt just sighed and lowered his head and Foggy sat down next to him.

"I just..." Matt started to say, but seemed to lose his nerve. "They make me feel..."

"What?" Foggy prompted. "Lonely? They make a lot of people feel that way but you're not the only one here without a date, buddy."

Matt chuckled.

"What's so funny?" Foggy asked.

"It just never even occurs to you, does it?" he asked Foggy. He smiled. Foggy was perplexed. "They make me feel different, Foggy. Left out."

"Oh," Foggy said, realizing what Matt meant. "Why weddings though? There's nothing that visual that you're missing out on, really, believe me."

"It's not just that," Matt said. "Some of it's all the new people. The assumptions that they make about me when they see me, and the wide berth they give me. I know I sometimes make people uncomfortable."

"Well those people are assholes," Foggy said, "and they miss out on getting to know how awesome you are, which is their loss." Matt laughed.

"It's more than that," Matt said. "It's that combined with the parts of the entire thing that I can't participate in. Telling the bride how beautiful she looks and tearing up when she comes down the aisle in her dress. The dancing. The getting drunk."

"Okay, wait..." Foggy said. "Hold up. You can get drunk! You can dance! Why couldn't you?"

"Getting drunk with you at a bar or with friends is one thing, Foggy, but in a strange place with so many people around who don't know me? Where I could embarrass myself or drag everyone down, make them worry?" Matt said. "No. I can't do that."

Foggy sighed, but understood that logic. "But you can dance. You've gotta be able to dance!" he said.

Matt shook his head vehemently. "No, I can't. Really, Foggy, that would embarrass me far more than drinking would, believe me."

"What?" Foggy asked. "You can't embarrass yourself dancing. It's impossible. The whole point of dancing is to not care who's watching and let loose!"

"For you," Matt said. "Not for me. I never learned to dance."

"Learned? What's there to learn? You're telling me you've never danced before? Not even a slow dance?" Foggy asked, incredulous.

"I never had to," Matt told him. "People assumed that I couldn't, I guess. And even if I had tried to, they assumed that I would never have been able to lead and I let them, for obvious reasons." 

"But what about school dances? Like your prom?" Foggy asked. 

Matt shook his head, and Foggy was filled with sadness at the thought that Matt had never had that, but also anger at the people who never made sure that he did.

He stood up. "Come on," he said, gesturing to Matt with his hand. "I'm making the get up gesture at you," he said offhandedly.

"I know," Matt said. "Why?"

"Because I'm going to teach you to dance," Foggy said.

"What?" Matt said, slowly being pulled up so that he and Foggy were standing face to face. "Foggy, you can't even hear the music out here."

"But you can," Foggy said. "And I'm gonna let you lead anyway. What are they playing?"

"Because You Loved Me by Celine Dion," Matt said.

"Ewwww," said Foggy. "I'm actually glad I don't have to hear that one."

Matt laughed and let Foggy position him so that they were wrapped around one another.

"Okay, so all you have to do here is sort of direct me forward and take a step with me with each beat." Foggy awkwardly directed him what to do.

Soon, they were swaying together in the summer breeze, dancing to music that only one of them could hear. 

When the song ended and a faster song came on, Foggy was insistent that Matt continue the dance lesson. As the night wore on, Foggy taught Matt every dance he knew, no matter how ridiculous until finally the two of them collapsed on the grass laughing. Foggy told Matt that he had no reason to be embarrassed. Matt knew he was wrong, but chose not to care. He knew it would never matter to Foggy either way.

In the end, Matt did have a lot of fun.

**Author's Note:**

> I love comments! They provide me with a great source of renewable energy that fuels my fics, so please if you like what I do and want more, leave them. I appreciate each and every one I receive.
> 
> Also, I have a Tumblr. It can be found [here.](http://enthusiasmgirl.tumblr.com)
> 
>  **Note:** Since it's kind of a lark for me to write and largely plotless, I have marked this fic as Complete for now, and reserve the right to return to it at a later point post-S2.


End file.
